Coping Skills
by dragonflybeach
Summary: Just because you can't find the words to say what you're feeling doesn't mean you don't feel those things. Set after Sam leaves for Stanford.


John walked into the house, stepping carefully over the salt line, pausing to flick on a lamp.

The sounds coming from his son's bedroom told him where Dean was, and that he wasn't alone.

Not that John was even slightly surprised. The boy had been screwing his way across the country for the past eight years. Of course, over the past two months, everything had changed.

His hookups, his drinking, his hunting, everything he did in life, was a little too intense. Too overdone. As if one more drink, one more fuck, one more inch further he pushed the envelope, would make everything wrong with his life go away.

As if it would make it all right Sammy was gone.

Or bring him back.

John banged on the bedroom door twice with his fist to get Dean's attention, and shouted "I'm home."

"Ok." Dean called back.

A female voice giggled. Then a second, different female voice giggled.

_Are you fucking kidding me?_

John shook his head, stomping to the living room, where he settled in front of the tv with a bottle of Jack.

It was another forty minutes or so before Dean's bedroom door opened, and he stepped out, wearing nothing but an unbuttoned pair of jeans, to escort a pair of trashily clad women to the front door. They were older than John expected, thirtyish, and cocktail waitresses unless he missed his guess.

"Call me." One of them cooed, trailing a red lacquered nail down Dean's chest.

"No, call me." The other one pushed her aside and kissed Dean on the lips.

The first one leaned in and pressed her lips against Dean's neck.

John cleared his throat. Dean drew back with a glance at his father before smiling at the women. "Why I don't call both of you, and we'll do this again?"

They giggled and told him to do that, and he was finally able to shoo them out the door.

It had been a little too long to keep John stewing.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" John demanded irritably, because he couldn't say the words he should have said.

_I know you're hurting and you miss Sam._

"Nothing." Dean shrugged. He walked into the kitchenette, found a bottle of beer, and sat at the other end of the lumpy old couch.

"Well you're going around acting like you've got your head up your ass." John snapped.

_I'm worried about you._

"No more than usual." Dean smirked.

"Yeah, I know no more than usual." His father grumbled. "Stupid shit is the status quo for you these days. Is it jail or paternity court you're trying to end up in?"

"Oh, geez." Dean groaned. "Are we going to have that talk again? I can quote it back to you. 'If you get one of these diseases going around now, they'll kill you. You get some girl pregnant, I'll kill you.' Just can it, Dad. I've never taken any stupid chances with anything like that."

"Your whole life is nothing but stupid chances these days!" John roared. "What the hell was that in Waco? You practically shook your ass at that Wendigo and dared it to bite you!"

_You're scaring me, Dean._

"Yeah, but I lured it out enough for you to get a clean shot at it." Dean defended.

John slammed his bottle down on the scratched coffee table. "Bobby called me earlier and needs a partner for a case. So I'm sending you. Pack up and ride out first thing in the morning. Maybe it'll do you some good to spend a few days with him. He won't put up with your shit."

_I can't keep watching you self-destruct._

Dean played with the label on his beer bottle. "Ok, fine. So you just gonna hang out here while I'm gone?"

"Unless a case comes up. If it does, I'll call you. You can either head back here or meet me wherever." John stood and stretched. "I'm going to bed. Wake me in the morning before you leave. And please, be careful."

_I can't lose you too._

"I will." Dean nodded, offering his father a half hearted smile.

Dean left the next morning to meet Bobby, and John spent the day reading the half dozen papers he picked up at the bookstore, looking for a new case. Not finding anything, he ended up that evening in front of the baseball playoffs with a takeout cheeseburger.

He heard a ringing noise down the hall. Frowning, he went to his bedroom, fishing one of his old cell phones from his sock drawer. He frowned at it, wondering who would be calling him from Minnesota.

"Hello?" he barked into the phone.

"John?" a female voice asked hesitantly.

"Who is this?" He forced himself to soften his voice.

"Um, my name is Kate Milligan. I don't know if you remember me ... "

"Kate?" "John nodded. "Nurse at Windom Hospital?"

"Yes." She replied hopefully. "You do remember?"

"Of course I remember." He frowned, wondering what on earth would prompt her to call him after all this time. "What's it been, twelve, thirteen years?"

"Something like that." She answered. "Look, John, I know I should have contacted you long before now, and there's no easy way to say this. When you and I ... um, we have a son."

"What?" Whatever he had expected, this certainly wasn't it.

"I had a son, nine months later. His ... his name is Adam. He's been asking a lot of questions lately, and he would like to meet you." She replied.

"Yeah ... uh, yeah." John stammered. "Of course I'll meet him. When?"

"Whenever you can." She said. "I know you'll probably have to make some arrangements ... "

"I can be there tomorrow." He interrupted.

"Are you sure?" She asked. "I mean, don't you have to do something about work?"

"We're ... we're ... uh, work's a little slow right now." John rushed to invent. "And besides, this is important."

"Ok." She answered. "Thank you. I'm really glad you want to see him."

"Of course I do." John spoke to her a few more minutes, getting her current address and phone number before ending the call. He sat the phone beside him on the arm of the couch and looked at the tv, where the game was nearly over.

The first words that popped into his head were the ones Dean had repeated to him the night before. Actually, it was exactly what John had said when he had "The Talk" with Dean. Of course, in Dean's case, the horse was already out of the barn, so to speak.

_ "If you get one of these diseases going around now, they'll kill you. If you get some girl pregnant, I'll kill you."_

John laughed out loud, wondering if he owed his oldest son an apology.


End file.
